Young people are becoming libertarians Re: “Under Obama, Millennials move into GOP column,” July 27
In 2008, young people were weary of war, an unstable economy, and the constraints of social traditionalism. Today, we Millennials know that President Obama and the Democratic Party only exacerbate these concerns.
This explains why Millennials, rather than shifting back to the right as Michael Barone suggests, are moving toward libertarianism. The philosophy of liberty offers my generation more control over our own economic and personal decisions.
In contrast, conservative politics merely presents young people with an ambiguous and unyielding emphasis on some subjective notion of tradition and prudence, while progressivism ensures that young people are ensconced in greater debt and taxes.
Individual liberty to live according to one’s own conscience and economic freedom to make one’s own decisions are the ideas that young people are rallying around. Soon both parties will be forced to adopt these ideas if they wish to maintain their relevance.
Clint Townsend
Arlington
Taxes are running residents, employers out of Montgomery
Re: “Montgomery tries to stop jobs slide,” July 25
So Montgomery County lost 18,000 jobs during the past four years? That is just a start.
Elected officials and union chiefshave been using county residents as an ATM with a 52.6 percent increase in the top income tax bracket, a 20 percent sales tax increase, an 18 percent corporate tax increase, a 20 percent car tax increase, the largest property tax increase in a generation in 2008 followed by 4-cent increase this year, a 240 percent increase in the residential energy tax (which is supposed to sunset next year but won’t), a 75 percent increase in the cell phone tax, and a 5-cent tax on biodegradable paper grocery bags.
Northrop Grumman, Hilton, Hughes and others took their jobs elsewhere. The chiefs of the county employee and police unions who socked it to the wallets of homeowners here don’t even live in Montgomery County. They live elsewhere — where the cost of living is cheaper.
Robin Ficker
Boyds, Md.
Wayne’s legacy has been greatly exaggerated
Re: “John Wayne embodied American exceptionalism,” Letters, July 20
Lawrence K. Marsh blithely claims that “John Wayne . . . was the embodiment of the true grit that is uniquely American.” This is nonsense because John Wayne was a fraud.
His significance as a cultural icon has been monstrously exaggerated and thoughtlessly repeated so often that well-meaning, but woefully misguided souls like Mr. Marsh believe the claptrap, conflating fiction with fact, fantasy with truth, and myth with reality.
As Gary Wills once observed, Wayne — who managed to evade military service during World War II — “would forever be the warless ‘war hero.’ ”
Craig Taylor
Alexandria
